Has anyone ever took a pin lock keg and converted it to a ball lock keg. I found a kit that changes the pin lock fittings to ball lock fittings but Im wondering about the lid. The pin lock lid has a one time use pressure release but the ball lock lid has just a pull tab style pressure release that you dont have to replace when you use it.
I just want to know if the ball lock lid can fit in the pin lock keg.
And for anyone whos wondering why I want to do this, for the size of the kegs to fit in my fridge plus the price of the two kegs. Thanks for the help guys.
Yes I’ve done the conversion. From what I can tell no you cannot use the lids from a ball lock. You have two options here. First buy new lids with the pressure release valve. Second, do what I do, I use my faucet wrench and use the gas post to release pressure, works perfectly. I was given a bunch of pin lock kegs from a restaurant closing and this is the route I chose.
You can also buy one of these cheap and just pop onto gas post to relieve pressure without unscrewing the whole post. Or just depress the poppet with a mini screwdriver, nail, Etc…
Pushing a spare gas disconnect onto the post does the trick, too.
There are kits for converting pin lock lids over to a ball lock style PRV, but from what I’ve seen they’re not much less expensive than replacing the whole lid.
Wouldn’t it just be easier and cheaper to buy pinlock disconnects rather than replacing the posts and lids? You can still vent from the post by depressing the poppet.
I’ve always wondered that myself. I’m using pin locks because so far that’s been the less expensive option for me. But if I came into a trove of ball lock kegs, what’s to stop me from doing that? I’m already using MFL fittings on all my lines, so swapping out disconnects would involve zero effort.
Replacing the posts and lids would definitely not be the cheap way. Adventures in homebrewing has pin/ball conversion for $9.99, I can vouch they work perfect.
why not just run them as pin lock? The only advantage i see with ball lock is the pressure release, but i see one major disadvantage, which is price. I’ve been running pin locks and i don’t see any issue with the posts. I really wonder why ball locks are so popular all the time.
